 Kickstarter |
Technician: Breacher | Tier 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Basic (3 pt): Your drills and saws gain an additional 20% chance to automatically restart after breaking. | ||
| Ace (6 pt): Enables the ability to reset a broken drill or saw with a melee attack. The ability has a 50% chance to fix the drill or saw. The ability can only be used once per time the drill or saw is broken. | ||
Mechanics[]
The basic effect gives a 20% chance to auto-restart. This can stack with a Hardware Expert's Aced effect. This effect is applied upon placing a drill, upgrading a drill without this effect, or repairing a drill without this effect.
If Aced you can, once per break, try to fix the drill by hitting it with your melee weapon. This has a 50% chance of success. The single-attempt-per-breakdown rule on restarting drills and saws with a melee strike is on a player-by-player basis, meaning that if several players on a heist possess Kickstarter aced, each of them has a single 50% chance to start a broken drill/saw even after another player has already attempted the same.
Strategy[]
This skill's basic version gives a chance of the drill restarting, reducing the amount of attention players need to give drills with this upgrade. It takes up to 10 seconds after breaking down for the drill to automatically reset, so one should still keep an eye on the drill in case the basic skill doesn't activate. However, a drill which restarts itself once will restart itself every time it stops afterwards, including when cops stop the drill. This essentially means a auto-restarting drill can be left alone entirely, although it may be worth keeping cops away from it anyways to prevent frequent stops.
The aced version makes the basic hardly important if the player with this skill is close by the drill. A 50% chance of fixing with a melee hit can significantly decrease the amount of time tending to the drill in case the basic version fails to activate. To repair a drill swiftly, it is recommended to bring a fast-swinging, long-reaching melee weapon, for example the Shinsakuto Katana.
With the release of the Henchmen update, this skill may not be useful to a player that mainly plays with the Crew AI, since the Quick ability that can be given to one of the bots increases, among other things, the player's drill repair speed. In the time it takes to check if the melee-fix will work on the drill and start repairing, a player buffed by the Quick ability could have already repaired it.
Notes[]
- There is a single exception to the ability of an auto-restarting drill to actually restart itself. On day 2 of the Hotline Miami heist, once The Commissar's gunship fires at the thermal drill to stop it, the drill will not be able to restart itself until it has been reignited once by the players (normally, or by striking it with Kickstarter aced). Once the thermal drill has resumed drilling, it will be able to restart itself again.
- Using a melee strike to restart a stopped drill or saw that lacks upgrades you possess will not apply those upgrades to the drill/saw. You must repair it normally or upgrade it while it is running to apply the upgrades.
- Drills that require a player to be holding a piece of equipment in order to restart them, such as The Beast or the Big Fucking Drill, cannot be started with a melee strike, even if the user is holding the required equipment.
Trivia[]
- "Kickstarting" refers to the act of striking or bumping against a device that either causes it to start working or resume operation if broken. This being an example of the Percussive Maintenance trope, it could've been inspired by any work featuring the trope.
- Thermal drills can be instantly reignited by Kickstarter aced like normal drills are restarted, although the logic behind this is arguably questionable.
